Heroics
Section author: Adana
Heroics will be your primary way to gear up, since you have the chance to get both 463 ilvl gear (and 473 epics off the last bosses if you're extremely lucky), and can collect justice/valor points to spend on gear. Before you begin, I would recommend figuring out which secondary stats you benefit from the most (since most upgrades have two to three options in terms of what secondary stats they have on them), and then looking through the loot tables of each instance and making a list of what upgrades come from where. Your initial 10 or so minute investment will more than make up for itself, since you will know which heroics have upgrades for you and which do not.
Efficiency gearing up greatly depends on which class/spec you want to play. As a class with the ability to tank or heal, it will be relatively easy to gear up quickly since your queue times will generally be under 5 minutes. As a DPS class, you will probably want to find a healer or tank to queue with, or switch roles if your class is able to while initially gearing up. In terms of gearing up:
Easy – Shamans, Priests, Druids, Monks
Medium - Warriors, Paladins, Death Knights
Hard – Rogues, Hunters, Mages, Warlocks
Classes with multiple roles fulfilled by the same gear will be the easiest to gear up, such as an ele/resto shaman, a shadow/healing priest, a resto/boomkin druid, or a tank/dps monk, for obvious reasons. You currently need a 435 ilvl to begin running heroics.
The fastest way to gear up (in my opinion) is to run random heroics until around 458 ilvl. Almost every instance should have an upgrade for you until this point, and you can replace your lowest ilvl gear with Justice Point gear. After this, it will benefit you the most to queue for specific dungeons that give you either the biggest upgrades or the most available upgrades. I do not recommend running heroics for specific epics, since their drop rate is around or less than 2%.
Justice points can be used to purchase gear from Commander Lo Ping. You can purchase chests, backs, rings, gloves, legs, neck, bracers, and trinkets from him (ilvl 458). Valor points can be collected by doing dailies and running heroics, and cap out at 1000 a week (with a 3000 total maximum). Valor point pieces of gear currently require certain reputations with different factions to obtain, and will be discussed in more detail later.
Crafting
Section author: Adana
Blacksmithing, Leatherworking, Inscription, and Tailoring are the four main professions that offer bind on equip gear you can use. Listed below are links to crafted items, sorted by type of armor.
Mail/Leather (Go to the column where it says “Type,†right click it, type in mail or leather, and click Ok to get the specific type of armor)
Engineers and Alchemists can make specific bind on pick up gear for their classes (helm for engineering, trinket for alchemy).
Rep Items
Section author: Vespra
Rep grinds are slow in MoP, but necessary if you want to buy items with Justice and Valor Points. Rep is generally earned through daily quests. You can buy ilvl 458 blues with Justice Points and ilvl 489 epics with Valor Points. As of a recent hotfix, Justice gear no longer requires rep to buy.
Epics
Golden Lotus - Rings (honored) | Chests and shoulders (revered)
Shado-Pan - Cloaks (honored) | Helms and trinkets (revered)
August Celestials - Bracers (honored) | Boots and gloves (revered)
Klaxxi - Necks (honored) | Legs and belts (revered)
Consumables for Raids
Section author: Vespra
With MoP cooking, you can make a food that boosts a stat by either +250 or +275. The former is pretty cheap while the latter requires a few more mats. There will most likely be guild feasts but always bring some of your own food in the event of deaths, etc.
There currently don't appear to be Guild Cauldrons, so be prepared to bring your own flasks/elixirs. CLICK HERE for elixirs and flasks.
Questions?
Contact Adana or Vespra.